(Notes on) Politics, Theory & Photography

“What we need is a critique of visual culture that is alert to the power of images for good and evil and that is capable of discriminating the variety and historical specificity of their uses.”
- W.J.T. Mitchell. Picture Theory (1994).

24 September 2014

Farewell

I started this blog on September 24th 2005. That is just over 3700 posts ago. The intervening years have - in personal terms - alternated between the worst and the best of my life. And the blog, and especially you readers, has been helpful as I navigated all that. I have met many, many smart and kind people here virtually all virtually. I thank you all for dropping by. For the past year or so, however, I have found it increasingly difficult to devote time to this enterprise. So I have decided to stop altogether. I hope to keep writing about photography and politics elsewhere. But at the moment I'm on my way the store to pick up the moth balls.

17 September 2014

Rick Lowe - Project Row Houses (aka MacArthur Fellow, 2014)

Quite some time ago I posted here on a brilliant, inspiring public art project in Houston called Project Row Houses. The project is coordinated by a man named Rick Lowe who, today, was named a 2014 MacArthur Fellow.He is a member of a ridiculously impressive "class" of recipients. These fellowships typically go to immensely smart, dedicated people. But their real function, I think, is to remind us of the wonderfully rich intellectual and creative ecology here in the U.S.; that is a dimension of the society that we can easily overlook.

Mark Your Calander

14 September 2014

Digest

This morning 3AM Magazine published this provocative assessment by philosopher Alex Rosenberg of Paul Krugman's views on .... well, economics.

Of late, economists have been worrying about capitalism, democracy and threats the former poses to the latter. You can read Robert Schiller 's concerns here, Joseph Stiglitz's here and Dani Rodrik's here. All at Project Syndicate.

On a lighter, but no less pointed, note The Yes Men have a new movie out you can find a review here.

Apparently, not all politicians are craven knuckleheads. As evidence for the seemingly preposterous claim, here at The New Statesman is the text of a speech (on 'Freedom & the Left') that Lisa Nandy (Labour MP - Wigan) recently delivered.

11 September 2014

40 Movies about photography every photographer should watch

08 September 2014

Coase, Reclining

Nerd alert: I have a post at The Monkey Cage, a bog of political science research (broadly construed) that is hosted by The Washington Post. You can find it here. It is only nominally about the recently newsworthy conflicts between recliners and reclined upon among passengers on domestic U.S. flights. It is really about the willful mis-use of social science research by libertarians. In this case, Josh Barro, writing in The New York Times, invoked "the Coase theorem" to rationalize his personal boorishness. He did so in ways that more or less completely distort what Coase actually claims. And his claim is just a small scale instance of the sort of boorish, venal policies that libertarians often promote.

07 September 2014

Torture Images ... in Court

The punch line from this editorial at The New York Times last weekend regarding legal disputes over access to photos of personnel from the U.S. military (and, I suspect, our 'intelligence community') torturing detainees.

"Images of war are frequently appalling, and the safety of American
citizens and soldiers is vitally important. But the greatest threat to
that safety lies not in the photographs of horrific behavior; it lies in
the fact of the behavior itself. The treatment of Iraqi prisoners at
Abu Ghraib and elsewhere was a shameful episode in U.S. history."

06 September 2014

Markets, Copyright, Photography

As, I've noted here before, Vivian Maier's work is astonishing. And now it is being bound up in legal knots by a bunch of men who never met her. You can get details here at The New York Times. I suspect nothing good will come of this.

Lies White Men Tell About Black Men Shot Dead by the Police

The Police Chief in Ferguson, Thomas Jackson, released to the press tapes of a supposed robbery that Michael Brown had allegedly perpetrated. Well the store owner didn't report any such event. And, it turns out, the Chief lied about having received FOI requests for the tape. No such requests are on record. Here is Chief Jackson:

And then there is the campaign, started by Chicago Firefighter Kevin O'Grady, to convict Brown on social media for putatively attacking the officer who shot him dead. There is the picture of a man, allegedly officer Darren Wilson, in a hospital bed seemingly badly beaten. Well, the man is the picture is not Darren Wilson. And, of course, there are eye-witness accounts suggesting that Brown never attacked Wilson at all. Here is Mr. O'Grady:

And, of course, there is the line of distortion, pursued by conservative blogger Charles Johnson (no relation!), suggesting that Brown was a thug with a ongoing record of serious criminal behavior - except that is false too. Here is Charles Johnson:

Let's set aside the inconvenient fact that even if all the allegations leveled by Jackson, O'Grady and Johnson were true, none is a capital offense. A young black man is dead. Senselessly. And white men have mounted concerted efforts to speak ill of him. Could any of this be blatant racism?

Passings ~ Roger Mayne (1929-2014)

27 August 2014

The Coase "Theorem" in Real Life ...

At The New York Times today, Josh Barro offers this good example of the temdency to mistake "models" for real life. (I
will overlook the fact that the Coase Theorem is not one - meaning not a
theorem.)

But let's embrace Barro's conceit. Two problems:

(1) The good Mr. Barro assumes well-defined property rights here.
(actually, he mistakenly asserts that they are well defined.) As the
reclined upon, I am not just "bothered" by his reclining. I arguably
have purchased a property right to the space my lower extremities
occupy. And his reclining infringes my
property right. (Here I am just stating the converse of Barro's claim
that he has a property right to the recline function.)

And (2) Coase assumes NO transaction costs, no "low" ones.

At this point I'd almost be willing to pay Barro to zip it! If you are
going to pose as social science literate, please at least try to get
things right.

23 August 2014

Freedom to Assemble

"Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Too often complaints about how government agencies violate the first
amendment there is a narrow focus on 'free speech' to the exclusion of
concern for the right to "peaceably ... assemble." I've said this here before. This report from the ACLU has that quality. It concludes: "Our words, our voices, and our
pictures are the most devastating weapons of all to entrenched systems
of injustice." What about our collective presence?

21 August 2014

Throwing Like a Girl?

I have been keeping this blog for quite a while. Very early on I posted this comment, noting the death of political theorist Iris Marion Young. I remarked at the time that the title of one of Iris's essays "Throwing Like a Girl" seemed to capture her personality quite well. I suspect that the cover photo for SI this week would have pleased Iris no end.

The Right to Take Photographs (Yet Another in a Recurring Series)

I have posted here multiple times on this and related themes. But given the arrest of journalists in Ferguson and the general attitude of law enforcement regarding constitutionally protected rights, it is important to be clear about those rights. This post from the ACLU underscores the rights of citizens (professional photographers or not!) to make images in public places - including images of law enforcement performing their "duties." This is common knowledge that law enforcement likes to ignore.

19 August 2014

James Foley

The Gawker reports here that an American photojournalist, James Foley, has been executed (beheaded) by ISIS in response to recent U.S. military activities in Iraq.You can find another report here at The New York Times.

16 August 2014

Local Event(s) @ Writers & Books: Diane Ravitch

Writers and Books is running this reading group this fall, focusing on a recent book by education historian Diane Ravitch. An accomplished historian of education and vigorous critic of what currently passes for education reform in the U.S., Ravitch is extremely provocative in large part because she is relatively conservative and once was an advocate of many of the reforms she now objects to. Her change in mind came from actually looking at the evidence!

14 August 2014

Digest

(1) A reminder for the local officials in Ferguson, MO (and their repressive counterparts in all the other cities and towns like Ferguson): not just religion and speech, but peaceable assembly and petitioning for redress are constitutionally protected.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

(2) Here is a brief reflection from Raymond Geuss on his early book The Idea of Critical Theory.

(3) At The Nationsymposium of short interventions on the importance of gender in thinking about political-economic inequality.

(4) A Project Syndicateessay by Dani Rodrik underscoring how insidious consensus among economists can be.

(5) Finally, this essay from The Atlantic on Jane Austin and Adam Smith ... no, they're not an item.

13 August 2014

Censorship American Style

So, this afternoon I am sitting on the floor playing with Esme and listening to The World Cafe on NPR. David Dye plays Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" where the second verse goes like this:

"Candy came from out on the Island
In the back room she was everybody's darling
But she never lost her head
Even when she was giving [SILENCE]
She says, 'Hey, babe,
Take a walk on the wild side.'"

And I think "Are you kidding me? Are we supposed to not notice?" Did anyone else notice? I am sure that this slight of ear was taken in order to avoid transgressing this or that FCC regulation concerning naughty talk on the radio. In other words it was taken in order to keep the censors happy. Walk on the Wild Side Indeed!

Mathematics & Beauty

As The Guardianreports Maryam Mirzakhani, an Iranian born mathematician now teaching at Stanford is the first woman to ever win the Fields Medal. This is a milestone for the discipline, obviously. But it is an opportunity to underscore a point Hilary Putnam makes in The Collapse of the Fact Value Dichotomy and Other Essays (Harvard UP, 2004), namely that, despite popular misconceptions, scientific inquiry is shot through with values and that the latter is not a homogenous category. Consider what Mirzakhani says in this 2008 interview:

"I don’t think that everyone should become a mathematician, but I do believe that many students don’t give mathematics a real chance. I did poorly in math for a couple of years in middle school; I was just not interested in thinking about it. I can see that without being excited mathematics can look pointless and cold. The beauty of mathematics only shows itself to more patient followers."

Beauty, of course, is an aesthetic value. And here Mirzakhani seems to be making it a central characteristic of mathematics and an animating reason for her intellectual pursuits.

12 August 2014

Parchment Barriers

This report from The Daily News is good news. However, I suspect the real problem is that the police already know what the memo lays out - namely, that citizens have a constitutionally protected right to photograph police operations so long as they do not interfere with those operations - but they simply do not give a hoot. Whether they ignore our rights blatantly or trump up reasons why the photographer is or might be interfering, the officers find ways to prevent images of their interactions with the public.

11 August 2014

Libertarian Fantasy Indeed!

Paul Krugman has written this column at The New York Times aiming to deflate this credulous story about the flourishing of libertarianism that appeared in the newspaper's magazine this past weekend.
He is, however, far too kind in at least one respect. It is not just that free
markets can't solve all our problems. As Jack Knight and I have argued
for many years* - we cannot rely on the various market mimicking decentralized solutions
(Coasian bargaining, community, incentive compatible mechanisms, etc.) that libertarians peddle
for much either. Why? The models that suggest otherwise tend to rely on
incredibly restrictive assumptions. In some instances the underlying mechanism the models invoke operate a cross purposes. Conversely, as Tim Besley has recently
argued**, the well known difficulties underscored by principle-agent models
in no way sanction any wholesale reliance on decentralized solutions
either. So, while Krugman makes his point on the basis of homely
examples, there is good reason in theory to think his conclusions are
quite general.
__________* See our paper in APSR (2007) and the book length version The Priority of Democracy: Political Consequences of Pragmatism (Princeton, 2011).** See Tim Besley. Principled Agents? The Political Economy of Good Government (Oxford 2007). I recommend reading the final couple of paragraphs first, then working through the book from the beginning.

10 August 2014

Selling Sex

A couple of pieces from The Economist - here and here - on how the internet is making prostitution safer and more profitable. Maybe. But even The Economist acknowledges that as many as 20% of prostitutes work the streets. So those women remain at high risk. And, of course, the question remains as to how women who do advertise and coordinate liaisons on line are pressed into service in the first place. Here is a bit of an antidote. A plausible market requires that participants are parametric - meaning that no one can influence the choices others make. So why people buy and sell sex, we surely don't have markets for sex now. It is unlikely that the internet will do much to change that.

09 August 2014

War Photography - The Impact of Images?

"It’s hard to calculate the consequences of a photograph’s absence. But sanitized images of warfare, The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf argues, make it “easier … to accept bloodless language” such as 1991 references to “surgical strikes” or modern-day terminology like “kinetic warfare.” The Vietnam War, in contrast, was notable for its catalog of chilling and iconic war photography. Some images, like Ron Haeberle’s pictures of the My Lai massacre, were initially kept from the public, but other violent images—Nick Ut’s scene of child napalm victims and Eddie Adams’s photo of a Vietcong man’s execution —won Pulitzer Prizes and had a tremendous impact on the outcome of the war."*

I can understand how the My Lai images could've impacted the prosecution of the war as evidence in or impetus to a legal proceeding. But I regularly here people say that the Ut and Adams images had a major impact on the prosecution of the war. How? I'd like to be persuaded. But I'd also like to have some way of justifying the claim. Did those images impact public opinion in a discernible way? Did they simply scare elected officials who thought they might lose their jobs for supporting (or not opposing) the war?

I happen to agree with Friedersdorf's claim about diffuse consequences for public discourse. But the more specific claim about the Vietnam images , while maybe plausible, seems under-supported. (note that the latter claim is empirical and causal.)

If we cannot cash out the claim that actual images have impact on politics, it is difficult - maybe impossible - to think how we can make the counter-factual case - namely that withholding images somehow has a specific impact.
__________
* This is a passage from this important piece at The Atlantic.

05 August 2014

What Could Be More Glamorus than a Gang Rape?

I am not totally dismissive of fashion photography or of those, like Steve Meisel or Mario Testino for instance, who ply that trade in especially self-aggrandizing ways. No. I take that back. I am. And here is a new entry into the lineage of moral and political tone-deafness that seems to plague the profession.

Not a Socialist Plot

"The fact that S&P, an apolitical organization that aims to produce
reliable research for bond investors and others, is raising alarms about
the risks that emerge from income inequality is a small but important
sign of how a debate that has been largely confined to the academic
world and left-of-center political circles is becoming more mainstream." ~ NY Times

"Our review of the data, as well as a wealth of research on this matter,
leads us to conclude that the current level of income inequality in the
U.S. is dampening GDP growth, at a time when the world's biggest economy
is struggling to recover from the Great Recession and the government is
in need of funds to support an aging population." ~ Standard & Poors Finacial Serves, LLCs

LEGO Straightens Out

So, in the past I have made it known how addicted my boy August is to LEGO. And I have criticized the company for marketing pink and purple to girls. So it is important to give credit where it is due. Here is a report on NPR about how LEGO has responded to the criticisms about gender bias. Since Esme has arrived these things are even more important to me.

03 August 2014

Digest - Gaza

Here are two political theorists Michael Walzer and Francis Kamm offering their views on the Israeli invasion of Gaza. And here is Israeli writer Amos Oz making a novel proposal for how the Israelis ought to approach the Palestinians. Actually, the proposal only seems novel and utopian in the current state of the world. And comments by David Shulman, Israeli intellectual and solidarity activist (solidarity with Palestinians!) on, by turns dispiriting and hopeful current political tendencies on the ground in Israel and the West Bank. Martin Shaw here offers a thoughtful reflection on his changing view of BDS.
__________P.S.: (4 August 2014) New Politics has published this pointed response to Walzer's attempt to justify the Israeli invasion of Gaza.P.S.2: (4 August 2014) An unimpressive assessment here by Peter Singer.

Re-Imagining Palestine: Ariella Azoulay

Some time ago Ariella Azoulay published this post at Verso in which she recommends a collaborative re-imagining of Palestine. As she makes clear, the word collaborative as I just used it is deeply problematic in context. But Azoulay has produced this film based on images rescued from official archives that aims to prompt just such collaboration. It seems like a good time to revisit her enterprise.

Parfit and Photography

Here is a passage from this portrayal of the immensely influential - and personally quite peculiar - British philosopher Derek Parfit - it appeared in The New Yorker a few years back.

"Sometime after he gave up the idea of being a poet,
Parfit developed a new aesthetic obsession: photography. He drifted into
it—a rich uncle gave him an expensive camera—but later it occurred to
him that his interest in committing to paper images of things he had
seen might stem from his inability to hold those images in his mind. He
also believed that most of the world looked better in reproduction than
it did in life. There were only about ten things in the world he wanted
to photograph, however, and they were all buildings: the best buildings
in Venice—Palladio’s two churches, the Doge’s Palace, the buildings
along the Grand Canal—and the best buildings in St. Petersburg, the
Winter Palace and the General Staff Building.

I find
it puzzling how much I, and some other people, love architecture. Most
of the buildings that I love have pillars, either classical or Gothic.
There is a nice dismissive word that applies to all other buildings:
“astylar.” I also love the avenues in the French countryside, perhaps
because the trees are like rows of pillars. (There were eight million
trees in French avenues in 1900, and now there are only about three
hundred thousand.) There are some astylar buildings that I love, such as
some skyscrapers. The best buildings in Venice and St. Petersburg,
though very beautiful, are not sublime. What is sublime, I remember
hearing Kenneth Clark say, are only the interiors of some late Gothic
cathedrals, and some American skyscrapers.

Although
he admired some skyscrapers, he believed that architecture had
generally declined since 1840, and the world had grown uglier. On the
other hand, anesthetics were discovered around the same time, so the
world’s suffering had been greatly reduced. Was the trade-off worth it?
He was not sure.

He believed that he had little native talent
for photography, but that by working hard at it he would be able to
produce, in his lifetime, a few good pictures. Between 1975 and 1998, he
spent about five weeks each year in Venice and St. Petersburg.

I
may be somewhat unusual in the fact that I never get tired or sated
with what I love most, so that I don’t need or want variety.

He
disliked overhead lights, in which category he included the midday sun,
but he loved the horizontal rays at the two ends of the day. He waited
for hours, reading a book, for the right sort of light and the right
sort of weather.

When he came home, he developed his photographs
and sorted them. Of a thousand pictures, he might keep three. When he
decided that a picture was worth saving, he took it to a professional
processor in London and had the processor hand-paint out all aspects of
the image that he found distasteful, which meant all evidence of the
twentieth century—cars, telegraph wires, signposts—and usually all
people. Then he had the colors repeatedly adjusted, although this was
enormously expensive, until they were exactly what he wanted—which was a
matter of fidelity not to the scene as it was but to an idea in his
head."

23 July 2014

Annals of Narcissism

August arrived here July 12th. Today is July 23rd. This evening his mother announced that she had reason to think he brought with him an infestation of head lice. The question is why it took mommy dearest nearly two full weeks to disclose her suspicion. She is not at home - having set off for a Yoga retreat at a fancy new age joint here in NY state. And she has spoken to August numerous times since he arrived. So, that suggests that she suspected the infestation pretty much all along and just didn't bother to mention the problem.

Of course, this delay meant the vermin had lots of time to reproduce. That means August's infestation was really bad. The top picture is a small sampling of what I combed out of his hair. The bottom one is a close up of one little vermin.

And the lice had lots of time to spread too. For instance, August and I shared a bed (pillows) for a week in Ann Arbor and a hair brush then and since. He has been hugging his nine month old sister repeatedly each day. He has been in camp with other kids pretty much every day. And so on ...

August spent much of the night in tears. In part, he is upset because he feels guilty for infesting our household (especially his sister). In part he is in pain because I've been pulling a lice comb through his long thick hair. (That is an experience we will repeat daily for a week or so.) Susan has been gathering up pretty much anything August has rested his head upon so that we can wash it all.

All the spiritual practice in the world does not mitigate the level of self-absorption (perhaps actual maliciousness?) that mommy dearest has displayed here. Many readers will know the person of whom I speak. The rest should count themselves lucky.

22 July 2014

Chris Killip

"MA: Your work often has a political undercurrent - if not an explicit acknowledgment of the political situation.

CK: Well, it would, wouldn't it? I mean, I was living in the industrial community of Newcastle, starting in the mid-1970s. I remember the editor of the Saturday magazine of the Sunday Telegraph asking me to photograph the men from the miners' strike. I didn't want to do the story for them because it is such a right-wing newspaper. He asked me which side was I on? I was quite shocked by the question. It had never occurred to me that I could be on anything other than the side I was on!

MA: But including political elements in your work is not about picking sides; it's about openly saying that your work, your worldview, is conditioned by historical forces.

CK: It was natural. I had no wish to deny it. I was also influenced by John Berger's TV program Ways of Seeing. I was so excited by that. I was just trying to understand then that no matter what you did, you inevitably had a political position. How declared it was was up to you, but it was going to be inherent in the work, and it was something you should think about as a maker. I never worried about my position in the art world. I thought time and history would ultimately judge me, that my job was to get on with it, to make the work and to make it wholeheartedly from what had informed me."*

In The NYRB this week is this brief notice about a new short film - Skinningrove (2013) -made by Michael Almereyda about his friend photographer Chris Killip and his work. You can find the movie in its entirety (approximately 15 minutes) here. I have posted on Killip here several times before. The exchange above, from a 2012 interview Almereyda did with Killip will offer some insight into why I so much like his work.
__________
* From: "The Past and Other Countries: Chris Killip in Conversation with Michael Almereyda,' Aperture (Fall 2012, Issue 208) [Link].

21 July 2014

Forget Heidegger (2)

I have, in the past, repeatedly expressed my views here on the dubious claim Heidegger has on our attention. No one disputes your "right" to read the anti-Semitic, Nazi sympathizer. Knock yourself out! But this recent justification for doing so is tortured in the extreme. In the first place, I don't care that the author is a Jew. That identity confers no special status in this matter or any other. Arguments count. And the arguments in this piece are, well, unpersuasive. For instance, I am not advocating censorship. Read Heidegger if you like. Just don't expect me to care if you do. Moreover, while I agree that the charge of anti-Semitism "is leveled too lightly, thoughtlessly, and therefore without a minimum
of respect for the actual victims of ethnic or religious oppression," in this context that sounds like a veiled attempt to discount or sanitize Heidegger's actual, well-established anti-Semitism. Calling Heidegger out for his loathsome views about Jews is not "a tool for silencing dissent;" it is simply quoting from his own writings. Finally, what are we to make of this?

"Of course, none of the recent revelations about Heidegger should be
suppressed or dismissed. But neither should they turn into mantras and
formulas, meant to discredit one of the most original philosophical
frameworks of the past century. At issue are not only concepts (such as "being in the world" or methodologies (such as “hermeneutical ontology”) but the ever fresh
way of thinking that holds in store countless possibilities that are not
sanctioned by the prevalent techno-scientific rationality, which
governs much of philosophy within the walls of the academia."

Having already sought to minimize any concern for Heidegger's anti-Semitism, the best the author can do is intone about his "ever fresh way of thinking?" If you say so, I suppose. But to me this sounds an awful lot like a demand that we sequester the man's Nazism from his philosophy. Indeed, that is pretty much the thrust of the entire essay. But the entire basis for ongoing criticisms of Heidegger precisely is that in his case it is not possible to do that in any plausible way. And if we have to read as extensively as the author's example seems to require (well beyond, by the way, "those minimally versed in his thought") in order to grasp the oh-so-subtle way that Heidegger the philosopher actually was not anti-Semitic, well doesn't that just suggest how his politics inflects his philosophy?

20 July 2014

Inequality Within & Inequality Between

Economist Tyler Cowen argues here at The New York Times that we ought not worry our silly heads about increasing political-economic inequality within developed countries because, he claims, inequality between developed countries and developing countries has diminished considerably of late. Then, here, over at his terrific blog Understanding Society philosopher Daniel Little pretty thoroughly skewers Cowen.

Not pretty. But well-deserved.
________________________P.S.: Dan also posted a link to this (now decade+ old) article by Robert Wade at The Economist. Punch Line? "Many analysts apparently take it for granted that global inequality is
falling. Others think it sufficient to focus on poverty, and ignore
inequality as such. Both these views need to be challenged. New evidence
suggests that global inequality is worsening rapidly." Unless things have really turned around in the past 10 years, the basic empirical premise of Cowen's essay appears to be false.

I heard on the radio recently that Manhattan has a population density of roughly 65,000 per square mile while the comparable figure for Gaza is upwards of 400,000 per square mile. And of course, residents of Gaza essentially are locked in. You might call civilians there sitting ducks. But then you might seem as callous as the Israelis in their lawn chairs.

My boy August is 8 years old. This photo makes me nauseous.

A Border Patrol agent reads the birth certificate of Alejandro, 8 -- the only thing he brought with him as he and others crossed the Rio Grande near McAllen recently. Alejandro is one of more than 52,000 minors traveling without parents who've been caught crossing the border illegally since October (Dallas Morning News).

Not a PR Problem! - HWS Doubles Down

What do you do when a young woman is sexually assaulted
on your campus and you proceed to bungle the subsequent investigation
process? Well, apparently, you act defensively, engage in copious
amounts of ass-covering, and continue to justify your every action. Here
is the latest missive from Mark Gearan, President of my alma mater ('77) Hobart &
William Smith Colleges. I know Mark to be a smart and decent man, which makes
this all the more stunning to me. He refers to a letter written by
the Chair of the Board of Trustees to The New York Times. You can find it here.

I suppose the fact that virtually everyone who
reads about the case finds the precipitating assault as well as the
Colleges' response totally outrageous should not be seen as an
indication that something truly is amiss on campus?

Both President Gearan and Ms. Zupin seem to miss the real problem. The problem here is
NOT the article in The Times. The problem is a sexual assault and a deeply
flawed institutional response to it. And the response should not involve invoking "best practices" (typically little more than a ploy to limit legal exposure) but an effort to change the culture on campus. ___________ PS: Here is the Change.org petition signed by 3000+ people criticizing the Colleges' handling of this matter.

Annals of Human Perversity - Bombardment as a Spectator Sport

The day before yesterday The New York Times ran this story about Israelis gathering in lawn chairs and eating popcorn as they watched the bombardment of Palestinians. It turns out that this was a reasonably common occurrence. And it is not new. (As I recall this is the same spectatorship captured in the cover photo of Ariella Azoulay The Civil Contract of Photography [MIT Press/Zone Books, 2012].) While this practice speaks volumes about the political degradation of many Isrealis, I doubt that it speaks much about Israelis in particular. They are not, in other words, uniquely callous.

Passings ~ Charlie Haden (1937-2014)

Sadness. Jazz bassist Charlie Haden has died. I missed the news when it was actually news. As I have noted here before, I found Haden, who mixed politics and music seamlessly, remarkable. You can find obituaries here at The New York Times, here at The Guardian, and here at npr.
__________
P.S. (26 July 2014): Here is a post consisting of recollections and tributes by Haden's fellow musicians.

13 July 2014

Shame on Hobart & William Smith Colleges

I am a Hobart College alum (Class of '77) and am totally outraged by this report at The New York Times on of sexual assault and subsequent investigative disaster at the Colleges. Even before
seeing it I'd received this damage-control missive from the President of the
Colleges stating (in part): "In response to inquiries, HWS officials met
with the Times reporter for two lengthy interviews and answered
numerous questions via e-mail and phone, all in an effort to fully
explain our approach and philosophy regarding sexual assault cases.
Regrettably, these responses were either ignored or downplayed in the
article." Note that this statement says nothing about the precipitating assault or
the actual performance of either the College investigators or Geneva
PD. This is shameful.

11 July 2014

Reflections on Summer Travels

Just finished Ann Arbor-94-96-401-403-QEW-405-190-290-90-ROC (going one way
or the other) for the 6th time this summer, heading back Sunday. Pretty
boring drive, allowing ample time to ponder a couple of empirical
generalizations.

First, Americans are really, really crappy
drivers. Invariably, if there is someone sitting in the passing lane at
three miles an hour above the speed limit in Canada, it is a car with US
plates of some sort. Of course this creates backups and provokes passing
on the right, thereby endangering everyone. Difficult to tell whether
this is purposeful crappiness or just obliviousness. No behavioral
difference. In the US, on both the MI and NY legs, each driver
apparently thinks they have a natural right to stay in the passing lane.
Infuriating driving. Canadians exhibit the opposite pattern, doing
their best to get out of the way of faster traffic.

Second, US Customs officers are generally pompous asses. No gender
variation. They seem sincerely astonished when, having kept you waiting
for between forty and ninety minutes as you try to cross the border into
your own freakn' country, you are not just brimming with good cheer as
they interrogate you. And they seem absolutely startled when, in response
to their inevitable query - 'Is there something wrong sir?' - you point
out that having had to sit forever waiting for them to do their
purposeless searching and interrogating has added an hour or more to an
already long tedious trip. On the other hand, it is best not to engage
them in debate about how they are protecting your liberty and security
by stemming the hoard of invasive Molson-swilling, plaid-wearing,
hockey-loving Canadians. By contrast Canadians customs officers are only
intermittently arrogant and annoying. The lines entering Canada, where I
am not a citizen, are rarely very long.

07 July 2014

Local Event ~ Recalling the Riots of 1964

July 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the Rochester Race Riots. Joseph Avenue, where the Lincoln Branch Library is now located, was at the center of events that would profoundly affect the city in the course of just three turbulent days. On July 15th, 17th, 29th, and 31st MCC Professor Verdis Robinson will lead a walking tour of Joseph Avenue and discuss the riots and historically significant surrounding the library. Refreshments provided. Call 428-8210 for more information.
_________________P.S.: You might also - not alternatively, but also - watch Carvin Eison's July '64.

Resuscitating Communism?

My own view is that progressive politics need not be held captive either to the renewal of communism or to the assumption that critics of capitalism must be communist.* Indeed, I think that the prospect of communism is a non-starter if, in fact, it requires relinquishing reliance on markets as central political economic institutions or writing off the vicious, violent acts taken in the name of communism over the course of the twentieth century. (Among the the massive flaws of the resuscitation effort, it seems to me, is a more or less total refusal to talk about actual or possible institutional arrangements.) Nevertheless, there are those eager to resuscitate communism - Benjamin Kunkel, Jodi Dean, Simon Hardy, and Alberto Toscano, for instance, who are publishing their advocacy at The European.
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* In general terms, I think this assessment (also drawn from the symposium at The European) is on point:

"But if we are no longer to define ourselves negatively, by our
opposition to Capital, what will be the name of our positive project? I
don’t believe that the old signifier communism can be revived for this
purpose. It is now irretrievably tainted by terrible associations,
forever tied to the nightmares of the 20th century. At the moment, our
desire is nameless – but it is real. Our desire is for the future – for an escape from the impasses of the flatlands of Capital’s endless repetitions – and it comes from
the future – from the very future in which new perceptions, desires,
cognitions are once again possible. As yet, we can grasp this future
only in glimmers. But it is for us to construct this future, even as –
at another level – it is already constructing us: a new kind of
collective agent, a new possibility of speaking in the first person
plural. At some point in this process, the name for our new desire will
appear and we will recognize it." ~ Mark Fisher

It Bears Repeating

I have posted in previous years links to the Oration, Delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, by Frederick Douglass, July 5th, 1852. This is a good enough occasion to publish this link to the entire speech.

24 June 2014

The Webbs Visit Rochester

I have to say that I find this project by Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webbon Rochester banal beyond belief. The repeated 'reflected in glass' images (is there a technical term for that sophomoric approach?) is just stupefying. Is it supposed to convey depth? Why is it that photographers seem to be wholly unable to approach the city in a direct, sensible way? Here they are at The New York Times and here they are at TIME. This makes me long for the Pellegrin fiasco!
___________P.S.: (6/25/2014) And here they are at The Guardian. Slow news day?

18 June 2014

More Reasons - If Any Were Needed - Dick & Liz Cheney Are a Joke

Dick Cheney (war criminal) and his daughter Liz (who has accomplished precisely nothing in her 'career' beyond accepting nepotism) are criticizing Obama? Are you kidding? The reason why Iraq is in its current state reflects the duplicity and criminality of Cheney and his cronies in BushCo. So, Obama (of whom I am no fan) is bad news because he has not cleaned up Cheney, et. al.'s mess to their liking! What a bunch of bullshit. By publishing this sort of tripe the WSJ Editorial Page perfects its mimicry of Pravda.

Unfortunately, the Cheney's reportedly have launched a 'grass roots' outfit to counter Obama's policy. They not only seem oblivious to their own abject unsuitability as sources of foreign policy advice. They also seem to not get the definition of grass roots - describing any organization launched by a former US Vice President and his privileged offspring as 'grass roots' is a laughable category mistake. And, might I add that the link to the WaPo Editorial Page (basically a free advert for the Cheneys) suggests that they are not far from the WSJ as peddlers of propaganda.
_____________P.S.: And, it turns out the Cheneys are not alone among architects of the BushCo fiasco who seem oblivious to the disaster they created.

13 June 2014

The Salt of the Earth

Juliano Salgado, Sebastião Salgado & Wim Wenders (2014)

I recall, as I first began (mostly here) to think semi-seriously about photography and its uses, watching Spectre of Hope the short film consisting mostly of a conversation between John Berger and Sebastião Salgado. As I noted at the time, it really crystallized one of the primary insights I have developed on Salgado's work specifically and the politics of documentary more generally. In any case, there is a new film - The Salt of the Earth, a collaboration between Wim Wenders and Juliano Salgado (the photographer's son) - documenting the elder Salgado's work. You can find two stories on the undertaking here and here at The Guardian.

10 June 2014

World Cup Politics

"Soccer, metaphor for war, at times turns into real war. Then “sudden death” is no longer just a name for a dramatic way of deciding a tied match. These days, soccer fanaticism has come to occupy the place formerly reserved for religious fervor, patriotic ardor, and political passion. As often occurs with religion, patriotism, and politics, soccer can bring tensions to a boil, and many horrors are committed in its name." ~ Eduardo Galeano

The World Cup is coming up very soon - soon enough that Susan and Esme (the English contingent of the family) sent me an England Jersey for Fathers Day. It is important to keep the nationalist spectacle in perspective. The tournament is not working out well for all Brazilians. Surprised? I came across this report at The Guardian on street art in the host country protesting the games. And, perhaps the best writing on "soccer" is by Eduardo Galeano who has dissected the political-economy of football in pretty exquisite ways. You can find a sample here but really ought to track down his book Soccer in Sun and Shadow (Nation Books). That is where I lifted the opening passage above.
__________P.S.: My fellow political scientists have written a series of posts at The Monkey Cage (WaPo) on the politics of the world cup; it is fair to say that some of these are howlers, while others are more interesting. But here they are nevertheless: 1, 2, 3. 4. 5, 6

P.S.2 (Added 6/12/2014): My friend Navine Murshid alerted me to this OpEd by Dave Zirin at The New York Times which is germane to this post. FIFA is as corrupt and authoritarian as the NCAA and the International Olympics Committee.

08 June 2014

Seeing the Occupation and Hearing It

"A Palestinian farmer looks toward the horizon of a beautiful landscape
in the Jordan Valley. His farm and house were demolished twice by the
Israeli authorities, as was the rest of his village. He decided to stay,
to fight against the continuing attempts to uproot him. He fights using
his very existence as a tool. This is the story of Burhan Basharat from
Khirbet Makhoul in the Jordan Valley. This is also the story of many
others."

I lifted this image and caption from this collection here at +972, an online web magazine focusing on the reality of Israeli-Palestinian interactions in the occupied territories. And then, this morning, I discovered this report at The Guardian on Breaking Silence - an initiative undertaken by former IDF members to describe those interactions in words. A powerful convergence.

02 June 2014

Annie Appel The Occupy Portraits

More or less coincidentally, I came across a link to this set of remarkable portraits of Occupy activists across several cities. The images are by Annie Appel who, while making the portraits, asked each subject how long they'd been in the movement and what they hoped for from the Occupy movement. Their answers, simple and direct, provide 'captions' for the images. Appel has initiated this Kickstarter campaign to try to get her images published in book form. Regardless of whether you approach her portraits primarily along political dimension, from the perspective of unadorned images, or both, Appel's work is really very good. Her campaign deserves your support. Give it up!

24 May 2014

David Levi Strauss Words Not Spent Today Buy Smaller Images Tomorrow

A new book by David Levi Strauss, arguably our best photography critic, is always a noteworthy event. This one is no exception. It contains 25 mostly brief essays discussing a wide range of photographers, critics and events. More to follow. I just wanted to note that the book is due out soon (if it is not out already) . . .

17 May 2014

Digest

The inimitable Rebecca Solnit here at The Guardian ~ "Call Climate Change What it is - Violence."

Photographer Nina Berman here in Columbia Magazine on the infrastructure and point of contemporary photojournalism.

An interview with Thomas Piketty here at the Institute for Public Policy Research (UK) and, also at The Guardian, this "manifesto" issued by he and a baker's dozen other French intellectuals defending a basic proposition: "It is time to recognise that Europe's existing institutions are
dysfunctional and need to be rebuilt. The central issue is simple:
democracy and the public authorities must be enabled to regain control
of and effectively regulate 21st century globalised financial
capitalism."

Finally, this essay by pianist Vijay Iyer at the Asian American Writers Workshop exploring 'Our Complicity With Excess.'

Age-Progressed Images - No Thanks

This is a picture of my boy Jeffrey doing one of the things he loved most, playing lacrosse. Jeff died eight years ago. He was 14. And I often wonder what he'd be like - I hope he'd have turned out as truly wonderful as his older brother Doug has done - or what he'd be up to. He would have been due to graduate college this spring. He'd be turning 21 next month. His friends are growing up, graduating, finding jobs and love out in the world. Some have or will be playing in the NCAA national lacrosse tournament. I wish them best of luck.

I have said here often that I miss Jeff every single day. I have many, many photos of Jeff and I cherish his memory. I have my memories. And I have my life. I do not want the former to tyrannize the latter. So, I must say that what appears to be an emerging practice discussed here at The Guardian pretty much horrifies me. I have no wish to see a forensic-like reconstruction from his childhood photos. None. The companies peddling this service are exploiting deep and abiding grief for profit. That makes me want to spit.

Seeing Grantley Bovell & Cecily McMillan

I highly recommend these two posts at BagNewsNotes [1] [2]. They dissect the visual evidence surrounding the prosecution of OWS activist Cecily McMillan for allegedly assaulting NYC police officer Grantley Bovell in 2012. McMillan recently was convicted on the charges and faces up to seven years in prison. You can read responses to the verdict here at The Guardian and here at The Nation.

16 May 2014

On Lee Friedlander ~ Whatever Happened to Milt Hinton?

I lifted this image of Lee Friedlander's off the MoMA web page because it reminded me of a review, from 1986, that historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote for the NYRB. The review discussed Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie (Albert Murray) and The World of Count Basie (Stanley Dance) and was entitled "Playing for Ourselves." The title was excised from a remark Basie's long time drummer Jo Jones made in an interview in the Dance volume. Looking back on the travails black jazz musicians encountered in depression era Kansas City Jones says "We were really behind the iron curtain. There was no chance for us. So there was nothing to do but play for ourselves."

This week at the NYRB is a review occasioned in part by this exhibition at the Yale Art Gallery some of which is devoted to Lee Freidlander's images of jazz musicians in New Orleans. (The other images in the exhibition are by Milt Hinton - an accomplished bass player and photographer who, being African-American, goes unmentioned in the review.) The review also is occasioned in part by the appearance of this accompanying collection of Friedlander's photographs:

The new collection is an updated and expanded version of this 1992 work:

What happened to Milt Hinton in all this remains a mystery. It is the same sort of effacement of African American musicians that, as I've noted here before, occurs (among other places) each spring at the Rochester International Jazz Festival. More on that another time.

Nothing I've said thus far should detract from Friedlander's work. Here, followed by just one of the portraits it mentions, is a comment from the recent NYRB review:

"Friedlander’s most indelible images are his portraits of musicians. Friedlander arrived in New Orleans at a high point in the jazz revivalist movement, when fans of jazz as it was originally played in New Orleans in the first two decades of the twentieth century (before the perceived corruptions of swing and bebop) descended on the city with tape recorders and notepads and cameras, hoping to catch some of the old magic and document it for posterity. [. . .]

Friedlander’s portraits do not feel celebratory, however. He found authenticity all right, . . . in the toll taken on his subjects by decades of privation and indifference. In his portraits the musicians—most of whom didn’t have the chops to follow Joe Oliver and Louis Armstrong north to Chicago forty years earlier—stare wistfully into the distance, or at the wall, as if indulging in some bittersweet private nostalgia. Many sit beside old family photographs, including pictures of themselves as young men. Some are photographed with their instrument, which they hold impotently, or rest in their laps. Their apartments are spare and poorly lit. There is dignity in these portraits, to be certain, and pride, but there is also despair."

It is refreshing to focus in on Friedlander's accomplishment as a portraitist just because it upsets somewhat conventional views of his work. But there are other images as well, and these bring me back to the Hobsbawm review I mentioned at the start.

"This sense of melancholy also shadows Friedlander’s photographs of performances. When George Lewis’s band plays a Bourbon Street tourist trap called the Paddock Lounge, the ceiling is so low that he almost has to duck, and nobody else in the frame—a patron, two bartenders—seems aware that they are in the presence of jazz royalty, an impression that is amplified by the insulting presence of the lawn jockey posing directly in front of Lewis. There are no audience members, for that matter, visible in most of the performance pictures, giving the impression that the musicians are playing for themselves."

Just so. And the portraits of elderly musicians capture part - surely, only part - of what trails behind their pursuit of so demanding and ultimately so isolating a profession.

Passings ~ Lynne Cohon (1944-2014)

13 May 2014

Passings ~ Camille Lepage (1988-2014)

A young French photojournalist, Camille Lepage has been killed while working in the Central African Republic; as this report at The Guardian suggests, the details of her death remain murky. I do not know Le[age's work, but her death underscores how dangerous it is to work in zones of civil conflict.

28 April 2014

On Piketty ~ A Compendium of Reviews

Consider this post an exercise for myself. I just want to keep track of some of the initial, astonishing response to Thomas Piketty's book. I noted a long review by Robert Paul Wolff here some time ago. But the responses have been coming fast and I want a central place to store links. I will add more links as necessary.

In any case, you can find reviews by Tyler Cowen at Foreign Affairs (May/June 2014), James Galbraith at Dissent (Spring 2014), Paul Krugman at NYRB (8 May 2014), Timothy Shenk at The Nation (5 May 2014), and Robert Solow at The New Republic (22 April 2014), as well as a troika of short commentaries by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, Heather Boushey, and Branko Milanovic at The American Prospect (10 March 2014). And, of course, there was an extended pre-publication discussion by Thomas Edsall at The New York Times (28 January 2014).

Update (6 May):Here is another review by Doug Henwood at Book Forum, yet another one by Robert Skidelsky here at Prospect, still another here at The American Prospect by Robert Kuttner, a fourth here at The Boston Review by Mike Komczal, and a commentary here by Brad Delong on the right-wing response to Piketty.

I am a political theorist with neither experience as, nor any real aspiration to be, a photographer. My interest is in the task Mitchell identifies in the passage I quote in the header. It remains, in my estimation, woefully neglected.

Now that the FTC has promulgated rules requiring full disclosure of any possible conflicts of interest, I feel obliged to note that I generally write about photography, books, recordings, and so on that I have paid for myself; if I ever do receive 'complimentary' copies of such works and then write about them, I will state that in the post. Having said that, my judgments about particular publications, (journalistic, artistic, or musical) works, or views are just that - judgments - if you take what I say as an "endorsement," that is your interpretation and you can act on it (or not) as you please. I'd say "caveat emptor!" but you are not actually buying anything here, so it is hard to see any basis for complaint.

"Help Kick Start United in Anger: A History of ACT UP ~ This is a Great Project and God Forbid that they Don't Have to Count Pennies!

"Photos always seem to exist as sort of stuffy, unnecessary antiques that we put in a drawer — unless we take them out, put them in current dialogue, and give them relevance." ~ Mark Klett

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"The job of the photographer, in my view, is not to catalogue indisputable fact but to try to be coherent about intuition and hope. This is not to say that he is unconcerned with the truth." ~ Robert Adams

AND, IN CASE YOU WEREN'T CONVINCED BY THE COUNT OF CORPSES ...

KATRINA/RITA RELIEF

Support ABC No RIO Building Fund - A VERY Worthy OUTFIT!

In Thinking About Photography Here Is The Problem, Or Part Of It, At Least

"What the modern means of reproduction have done is destroy the authority of art and to remove it - or rather, to remove the images which they reproduce - from any preserve. For the first time ever, images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free. They surround us the way language surrounds us. [. . .]

The art of the past no longer exists as it once did. It's authority is lost. In its place there is a language of images. What matters now is who uses that language for what purpose." ~ John Berger

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"[P]hotographs depend for their meaning on networks of authority. The image supplies little in itself. What counts is its use and the power to fix a particular interpretation of the events, objects or people depicted. Some people, and especially some institutions, have much more clout in this processs than others do." ~ Steve Edwards

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"The first question must always be: Who is using this photograph, and to what end?" ~ David Levi Strauss

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"By contrast, almost all writing about photography in our times tends to begin with the alleged nature of the product rather than with its production and use." ~ Patrick Maynard

Assorted Artists, Authors, Thinkers, Provocateurs

"Apolitical art and artless politics are the fruit of a divide-and- conquer strategy that weakens both; art and politics ignite each other and need each other." ~ Rebecca Solnit

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"... hard and fast categories ... tend to be instruments used by the victors." ~ Václav Havel (1986)

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"The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude." ~ George Orwell (1946)

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"Can it still be controversial to say that an apparently disengaged poetics may also speak a political language - of self-enclosed complacency, passivity, opportunism, false neutrality . . . ?" ~ Adrienne Rich (2006)

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"I think art always is political, one way or another. That is, on purpose or by default." ~ Allan Sekula (2005)

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“Those who say that art should not propagate doctrines usually refer to doctrines that are opposed to their own.” ~ Jorge Luis Borges (1952)

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"My position is that you cannot work towards peace being peaceful. If the peace is to be one where everybody’s quiet and doesn’t open up ... share what’s unspeakable ... offer unsolicited criticism ... defend others’ rights to speak and encourage discourse — that peace is worth nothing. It reminds me of the kind of peace that was secured in my old country under the Communist regime. That is the death of democracy. That might have consequences as bad as war—bloody war and conflict. So, to prevent the world from bloody conflict, we must sustain a certain kind of adversarial life in which we are struggling with our problems in public." ~ Krzysztof Wodiczko

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“I am interested in a political art, that is to say an art of ambiguity, contradiction, uncompleted gestures, and uncertain endings; an art (and a politics) in which optimism is kept in check and nihilism at bay.” ~ William Kentridge (1998)

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"The function of art has always been to break through the crust of conventionalized and routine consciousness." ~ John Dewey (1927)

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Paris Review: Is it a concern to effect social change with your plays?

August Wilson: I don’t write particularly to effect social change. I believe writing can do that, but that’s not why I write. I work as an artist. All art is political in the sense that it serves someone’s politics. Here in America whites have a particular view of blacks. I think my plays offer them a different way to look at black Americans. For instance, in Fences they see a garbage man, a person they don’t really look at, although they see a garbage man every day. By looking at Troy’s life, white people find out that the content of this black garbage man’s life is affected by the same things—love, honor, beauty, betrayal, duty. Recognizing that these things are as much part of his life as theirs can affect how they think about and deal with black people in their lives.

Paris Review: How would that same play, Fences, affect a black audience?

August Wilson: Blacks see the content of their lives being elevated into art. They don’t always know that it is possible, and it’s important for them to know that.

Critical Art Ensemble Defense Fund

New Corporate Friendly Postal Regulations Threaten Independent Media

NEWS ABOUT RIGHTS OF PHOTOGRAPHERS IN NYC

News, Comment, Letters & Arts- And I surely do not mean "fair and balanced"!

"Most of all photography is probably an instrument for showing things, a device for displaying them." - Urs Stahel

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"The most political decision you make is where you direct people's eyes. In other words, what you show people, day in and day out, is political. . . . And the most politically indoctrinating thing you can do to a human being is to show her, every day, that there can be no change." ~ Wim Wenders

CLICK POSTER FOR LABOR NEWS

"Democracy is a proposal (rarely realised) about decision making; it has little to do with election campaigns. Its promise is that political decisions be made after, and in the light of, consultation with the governed. This is dependent upon the governed being adequately informed about the issues in question, and upon the decision makers having the capacity and will to listen and take account of what they have heard. Democracy should not be confused with the “freedom” of binary choices, the publication of opinion polls or the crowding of people into statistics. These are its pretense.

Today the fundamental decisions, which effect the unnecessary pain increasingly suffered across the planet, have been and are taken unilaterally without any open consultation or participation." ~ John Berger

Inclusion, Exclusion & the Politics of Photography

"I have said that a photograph bears witness to a human choice being exercised. The choice is not between photographing x and y, but between photographing at x moment or y moment. . . . What varies is the intensity with which we are made aware of the poles of absence and presence. Between these two poles photography finds its proper meaning. ... A photograph, while recording what has been seen, always and by its nature refers to what is not seen. It isolates, preserves and presents a moment taken from a continuum. ... Hence the necessity of our understanding a weapon we can use and which can be used against us." ~ John Berger

If We Use Photography to Help us Think, How Should We Understand the Processes of Thinking?

"605. One of the most dangerous ideas for a philosopher is, oddly enough, that we think with or in our heads.

606. The idea of thinking as a process in the head, in a completely enclosed space, gives him something occult.

607. Is thinking a specific organic process of the mind, so to speak - as it were chewing and digesting in the mind? Can we replace it by an inorganic process that fulfills the same end, as it were a prosthetic apparatus for thinking? How should we have to imagine a prosthetic organ of thought?" ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

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"If one takes the view ... that human mental activity depends for its full expression upon being linked to a cultural tool kit - a set of prosthetic devices, so to speak - then we are well advised when studying mental activity to take into account the tools employed in that activity." ~ Jerome Bruner

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"...[H]uman thought is basically both social and public - ... its natural habitat is the house yard, the marketplace, and the town square. Thinking consists not of 'happenings in the head' (though happenings there and elsewhere are necessary for it to occur) but of a traffic in what have been called by G.H. Mead and others, significant symbols - words for the most part but also gestures, drawings, musical sounds, mechanical devices like clocks, or natural objects like jewels - anything, in fact, that is disengaged from its mere actuality and used to impose meaning on experience. From the point of view of any particular individual, such symbols are largely given. ... While she lives she uses them, or some of them, sometimes deliberately and with care, most often spontaneously and with ease, but always with the same end in view: to put a construction upon the events through which she lives, to orient herself within 'the ongoing course of experienced things,' to adopt a vivid phrase of Johns Dewey's." ~ Clifford Geertz

NET NEUTRALITY

NET NEUTRALITY AGAIN

Electronic Frontier Foundation: Support Bloggers' Rights

Resources For Bloggers Needing Anonymity

"Just the Facts Ma'am"?

"Many persons seem to suppose that facts carry their meaning along with themselves on their face. Accumulate enough of them and their interpretation stares out at you. ... But ... no one is ever forced by just the collection of facts to accept a particular theory of their meaning, so long as one retains intact some other doctrine by which he can marshall them. Only when the facts are allowed free play for the suggestion of new points of view is any significant conversion of conviction as to meaning possible. ... In any event, social philosophy exhibits an immense gap between facts and doctrines." ~ John Dewey (1927)

Music Links ("without category") - More to Follow

"It's odd I suppose, ... but I have always had an aversion to the marriage of music and politics. Leaving the discussion of instrumental music aside, I have always admired songwriters, wished I could have been one myself. I love a song that tells a story, and when it tells of a man's suffering or a woman's hopelessness or dreams, one can certainly argue the case for political meaning, and in fact I would. But when people start telling me how to change the world over a G-major chord, that's when I generally leave the room. With all due respect, I always felt Joan Baez's 'I Dreamed I saw Joe Hill' was the moment in the movie 'Woodstock' to go out and get popcorn. It's a long movie after all. I was waiting for Sly and the Family Stone and I still am - "I want to take you higher - baby, baby, baby light my fire" - now there's a message!" ~ Wayne Horvitz

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"Music speaks. It speaks in its own language differently to each of us. I believe in music as a contribution to the discussion about who we are and where we are headed. ... The unruly thing about music is that it demands its own meanings that are beyond any explanation. You might be able to decipher the nuts and bolts, but in the end, you can't unscramble the mystery of how music makes you feel. That's why I don't often write about my music. Words can so often obscure the feelings and the sense of music. Music is not an argument, it lives in its own universe and refuses to be pinned down." ~ Dave Douglas

Questions & Answers

" ... the questions a photographer raises may be more profound than the answers the medium permits." ~ Rebecca Solnit

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"Because, you know, the photographs . . . are more a question than a reply." ~ Sebastião Salgado

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"A picture can be an answer as well as a question but if you can't answer your question try to question your question. There are clever questions and stupid answers as well as stupid questions and clever answers. There can be questions without answers but no answers without questions." ~ Ernst Haas

Radio, Radio

YOU WON'T EVER BE DECISIVE IN THE OUTCOME, BUT YOU CAN VOICE YOUR VIEWS AND CONTRIBUTE TO THE CACAPHONY ~ SO REGISTER, FIND A CANDIDATE, HOWEVER HOPELESS THEIR CHANCES, AND VOTE

Cool Designs and Other Things (More to Follow)

"The best art makes your head spin with questions. Perhaps this is the fundamental distinction between pure art and pure design. While great art makes you wonder, great design makes things clear." ~ John Maeda

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"I don't bring an essentialist view to my background as a designer. But design gave me an opportunity to observe and learn about the social politics of production, distribution, and use. Use is very important." ~ Krzystof Wodiczko

SOME COMMENTS LOOKING FOR A HOME

“I don’t think it is the function of art to be pleasing. ... Art is not democratic.” ~ Richard Serra

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"We may distinguish between two types of imaginative process: the one starts with the word and arrives at the visual image and the one starts with the visual image and arrives at its verbal expression." ~ Italo Calvino

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"There is something embarrassing in ... the way in which, ... turning suffering into images, harsh and uncompromising though they are, ... wounds the shame we feel in the presence of the victims. For these victims are used to create something, works of art, that are thrown to the consumption of a world which destroyed them. The so-called artistic representation of the sheer physical pain of people beaten to the ground by rifle-butts contains, however remotely, the power to elicit enjoyment out of it. The moral of this art, not to forget for a single instant, slithers into the abyss of its opposite. The aesthetic principle of stylization ... makes an unthinkable fate appear to have had some meaning; it is transfigured, something of its horror removed. This alone does an injustice to the victims; yet no art which tried to evade them could confront the claims of justice." ~ T.W. Adorno

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"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

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"A photograph is a moral decision taken in one eighth of a second, or one sixteenth, or one one-hundred-and-twenty-eighth. Snap your fingers; a snapshot's faster." ~ Salman Rushdie

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"I cannot find any good use for the term postmodernism. ... I have no idea what is supposed to make a painting, or a novel, or a political attitude, "postmodern." ~ Richard Rorty

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"The greatest obstacle to transforming the world is that we lack the clarity and imagination to conceive that it could be different." ~ Roberto Mangabeira Unger

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"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." ~ Arundhati Roy

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[1] "A limited imagination defends itself against recognizing the world as a system of connected vessels; it also is incapable of moving beyond the familiar."

[2] "Great numbers, however, cause particular difficulties for our imagination. As if we observe humanity in a way that is not permitted for humans, and allowed only to gods. ... In other words, they can think in categories of masses. A million people more, a million less - what difference does it make?" ~ Czeslaw Milosz

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"Politics depends, to a great extent, on judging what is actual relative to what is possible. [. . .] However, we have an inherently weak grasp of what is 'possible' and most societies are not set up so as naturally to improve this, or to make us aware of possibilities we may have ignored or taken with insufficient seriousness." ~ Raymond Geuss

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"Start doing the things you think should be done, and start being what you think society should become. Do you believe in free speech? Then speak freely. Do you love the truth? Then tell it. Do you believe in an open society? Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then behave decently and humanely." ~ Adam Michnik

Administrative Matters From Here On Down

FAIR USE

Posts to this blog may contain images and excerpts for the use of which I have not sought prior authorization. Wherever possible I endeavor to provide credit and accurate attribution to authors, artists and copyright holders. All material on this blog is made available for the purpose of analysis and critique, as well as to advance the understanding of politics, political theory and the arts. The ‘fair use’ of such material is provided for under U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with U.S. Code Title 17, Section 107, material on this site (along with credit links and attributions to original sources) is viewable for educational and intellectual purposes.

COMMENTS POLICY

I allow comments on nearly all posts. In fact, I encourage comments and usually am happy to offer replies. That said, I will feel free to enforce standards of civility here.

I am completely willing to delete boorish comments ~ e.g., those involving name-calling, cursing, or that are generally disrespectful toward me or other readers. The same goes, especially, for various forms of bigotry. The same goes for comments that are not germane to the post or comment thread.

Except in very rare instances, I do not publish anonymous comments. Experience suggests that unless a reader is willing to identify himself and take responsibility for his views, he too often proves willing to act like an ass. (Apologies for the gendered language, but it seems appropriate in this context.) So, like boorish, anonymous is a more or less direct route to comment oblivion. Life is too short.

I treat this blog like I treat my living room. If you come here and act like an ass, I'll show you the door. And, as is true of my living room (& yours no doubt, too), I am the sole judge of what counts as acting like an ass. Fair warning.